


It's Friday, I'm in love

by Lacerta26



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: (kinda), 5 Times, Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Gossip, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28810977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacerta26/pseuds/Lacerta26
Summary: Fergus wants to keep their relationship strictly need-to-know. Adam thinks that ship might have already sailed.
Relationships: Adam Kenyon/Fergus Williams
Comments: 16
Kudos: 42





	It's Friday, I'm in love

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone's worked out what's going on with Fergus and Adam (even if Fergus and Adam have only just worked it out themselves.)
> 
> Title from The Cure - 'Friday I'm In Love' (I'm sensing a theme developing here!)
> 
> Thanks for reading ^_^

**Adam & Fergus **

‘No one can know about this,’ says Fergus, which is not quite what Adam wants to hear from the man who just fucked him six ways from Sunday.

Well, maybe the specifics they can keep to themselves but Adam is not about to be forced back into the closet by a man who regularly quotes musical theatre in the middle of an argument. 

It’s not as easy for Fergus, being honest about this, whatever it is, and neither of them are ready to have _that_ conversation yet, it’s a statement, it’s political. They can’t deny that everyone from the prime minister to the prime minister’s grandmother will have an opinion and if someone even thinks the phrase _conflict of interest_ at them Adam will start throwing punches. 

Still, Adam is nothing if not pragmatic, ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to but, Ferg, I’m not going to lie.’

‘No, I know, it’s just -, I don't want the press getting hold of it. Our private life is private, y’know. I don’t want to cause a scene.’

The fact the press have yet to question Fergus’s apparently perpetual single status in pointed tones is nothing short of a miracle in Adam’s opinion. He also doesn’t mention that the assumptions pretty much everyone has ever made about the two of them are now true because Fergus has gone back to feeling him up and that is infinitely more inviting than discussing the relative homophobia of the small minded British press. 

‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ Adam manages, as Fergus sucks distractingly on his neck, he just hopes it’s safe with everyone else. 

**Emma & Angela **

‘How long’s that been going on for?’ says Angela looking significantly over Emma’s shoulder in lieu of pointing. 

Emma feels it’s unfair she’s been put in charge of schmoozing the hacks at this press conference for Peter’s latest policy launch. At least it’s Angela, who is vaguely normal, underneath all the venom, even if, as Emma suspects, she votes for the other side.

‘How long’s what?’ Emma turns to see where she’s looking but Angela grabs her arm to turn her back.

‘Don’t be obvious! Fergus and Adam, they’re shagging right?’ 

Emma turns slightly more subtly to glance across the room out of the corner of her eye. Adam and Fergus are, unsurprisingly, standing away from everyone else and Fergus has his head thrown back in ecstatic laughter. Adam is standing too close to him, gripping Fergus’s elbow as if to keep him upright, and grinning, the lines around his eyes crinkling with sincerity. 

‘Are you sure that’s what’s going on? They’re like that all the time, I don’t think it means anything,’ she might not bully them about it quite so much if it were _true._

‘Believe me, Adam is only like that with the people he’s shagging,’ Angela says sagely and Emma tries to school her face into one of polite neutrality as several assumptions she’d made about Adam’s time at the _Mail_ slot into place. Angela rolls her eyes.

‘Not with me, for fucks sake. Adam might swing both ways but I don’t. Not anymore,’ she adds darkly. 

Emma tucks that bit of information away for later, considers Olly’s success rate in turning his ex-girlfriends and feels unnecessarily smug. 

‘Still…’

‘I’m telling you,’ says Angela, ‘that’s Adam post-coital. If you need anything from him I'd ask him now while he’s in a good mood. Oh, there’s Peter. I suppose I ought to speak to him.’ 

Angela pulls a face as she heads towards Peter and Phil and Emma goes back to watching Adam and Fergus. She can name at least seven other MPs in her party alone who are currently shagging their Special Advisors in a manner that more or less constitutes a relationship. Don’t Shit Where You Eat is the old adage but there are very few opportunities in the lives they lead to find sex or, god forbid, romance outside Westminster. Emma thinks of Olly again and feels vaguely sick. 

Fergus and Adam are talking more seriously now but Adam has his hand on the small of Fergus’s back as they look at something on his phone. It’s not jealousy Emma feels as she watches them rather resignation because unless she can make the move over to Number Ten she’s been angling for she’ll be propping up Peter until the gout sets in and the only option there is Phil which is truly too appalling to even think about. 

While she’s watching them Adam and Fergus appear to come to a decision which involves ditching Fergus’s ministerial duty of buttering up the Press in favour of finding a stationary cupboard to have a shag in, probably. On their way out Adam’s hand drifts marginally lower on Fergus’s back and when he catches her eye, looking around the room over his shoulder, he winks. Emma has to admire the brass bloody bollocks on the man if nothing else. 

**Terri & Glenn **

Glenn is hovering rather pathetically in view of Fergus’s office when Terri intercepts him. It’s 5.45 on a friday and she knows he’s hoping for an invite to the pub or to just tag along behind them as they leave, as if they won’t notice he’s there until they’re four pints in. 

Her ongoing attempts to be deliberately and obstructively adequate and no more, in the hope of early retirement, haven’t stopped Terri from keeping her eyes open or her ears to the ground at DoSAC and she’s fairly certain that whatever their plans for the evening they don’t want Glenn hanging around. Fourth Sector Guru is one thing but a ménage à trois is certainly not on the cards. 

‘Ah, Glenn, what’s the line on this Roving GPs policy? Might be good to get it squared away before the weekend.’

He looks at her like she’s sprouted an extra head, confused as to why she’s chosen this moment to become suddenly competent so close to the end of the day when they all know Terri Coverley goes offline. 

‘Doctors Without Desks? Not now, Terri! I’m just waiting, ah -’ 

Fergus and Adam emerge from Fergus’s office looking utterly put together but Fergus is rather pink in the cheeks and Adam looks smug. Well, more smug than usual. 

‘Glenn,’ Terri says sharply and he’s stopped in his tracks looking longingly across the room as they head to the lifts, ‘leave them be, they’re going home.’ 

‘No, it’ll be a couple of pints in the pub first and -,’ he really is a moment away from wagging his tail at them and dropping a ball at their feet. 

‘They’re going home,’ says Terri, ‘ _together,’_ in the manner one might converse with a deaf, elderly relative at a wedding. 

Glenn peers across the room at where Phil has accosted Adam before they’ve managed to get out the door. Fergus is tapping his foot peevishly and Adam puts a placating hand on his arm and leaves it there. 

‘Come off it, Terri. This isn’t one of your saucy paperbacks. Fergus and Adam are just mates.’ 

‘I don’t think so.’

He looks back to where Fergus has his hand on Adam’s shoulder now, smiling as Adam jabs his finger threateningly at Phil, eyebrows raised and smirking. Terri watches the cogs turn in Glenn’s mind and really hopes she won’t have to be more direct in her efforts to convince him.

‘For fuck’s sake. I’ll be even more out of the loop now. No one wants a bloody third wheel getting in the way,’ Glenn sags like a marionette with the strings cut as Fergus and Adam finally manage to shake Phil off and head out. 

‘I’m sure you won’t be missing out on much, love. They’re hardly going to be planning policy in bed now are they.’

Glenn looks sour for a moment, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ 

‘No, no perhaps not,’ that would be just the sort of thing to get them off, dirty talk and independent polling results.

‘Right, so the press pack for this policy then?’ 

Glenn turns round expectantly but, duty done, Terri holds up her Blackberry, ‘6.02 Glenn, I’m off the clock. We’ll have to deal with it next week. Have a good evening,’ and leaves him standing lamely in the middle of the office. 

**Peter & Phil **

‘You will not believe what I’ve just seen,’ says Phil, absolutely fizzing with jubilation that Peter can only assume constitutes a sighting of Thatcher’s reanimated corpse come to lead them on to victory. 

‘I’m sure whatever it is, I don't care about it,’ Peter says scrolling through endless emails from Stewart about some interdepartmental powwow session no doubt intended to realign their political chakras, interspersed with emails containing bollockings from Mary Drake and spam emails he doesn’t know how to avoid. Where’s Emma? She’s normally on duty to redirect Phil before he makes it to Peter's door. 

Phil continues, unabashed, practically bouncing with excitement, ‘by the stationary cupboard. Fergus and Adam. _Snogging.’_

The way Phil says snogging very seriously suggests he’s never done it and Peter runs a hand over his eyes in despair. He’s not Fergus’s biggest fan and he’d be the first to say that Adam is about as morally upright as an ironing board, and with less spine, but he’s a firm believer that a gentleman’s private life is his own affair. Whatever Phil thinks he’s seen it’s definitely none of his business. 

‘I couldn’t give a toss if they’re shagging every night in ball gags and leather, it’s none of our concern.’ 

Peter makes sure to annunciate very carefully when he says _ball gags_ just to make Phil squirm. It works and Phil flicks his hair in the way he always does when he’s embarrassed. Peter is cruelly pleased to have caused it. Serves him right; as far from Peter's own experience as it is one thing he has no time for is sanctimonious hand wringing about other people's sexualities. Peter was a grown up in the 80s, unlike Phil, who was probably still pulling girls pigtails and picking his nose, he saw enough of this sort of gleeful homophobia the first time round and it's especially galling from Phil, who almost certainly hasn’t had a shag since he was at university, and is probably just jealous. 

‘It’s unprofessional, that’s all,’ says Phil, ‘I don’t have a problem with it.’

‘And yet here you are gossiping to me about it when you can’t possibly imagine I’d care.’ 

‘I just thought you should know,’ Phil stammers, wearing a look of affronted confusion that Peter won’t join in with his catty backbiting.

‘And now I do, so bugger off and don’t bother me with this again.’

Phil scarpers rather quickly and Peter doesn’t see him again all afternoon. He’s probably gone off to lick his wounds somewhere as he always does when Peter gives him a bollocking. It does occur to Peter to pay slightly closer attention to Fergus and Adam for the rest of the day and on reflection it seems Phil is right, they do appear to be involved. Good luck to them, Peter thinks, not without a small amount of resentment at how royally he’s fucked up his own relationship. Tina is too good of a person is the problem; at least with Fergus and Adam they’re both as bad as each other. 

**Julius & Malcolm **

Julius has known about Adam Kenyon since he first caught him flirting with Julius’s husband at a Home Office bash only a few months into the Glorious Coalition. Fergus Williams on the other hand is a wild card he perhaps should have seen coming. Or Coming Out as the case may be. 

He makes it his mission to know who’s who in the queer end of politics if only to be able to give them a hand, of varying sorts, when the time comes, regardless of political affiliation. Fergus, as an inconsequential member of the junior party in government, has barely registered as a blip on Julius’s radar but the way he’s currently looking at his Special Advisor is hard to argue with. You couldn’t fit a cigarette paper between them and it’s quite clear you shouldn’t try. Julius allows himself a brief and heady moment to imagine all the possible configurations and logistics that might exist between them before he turns back to the room at large, sipping his barely acceptable glass of prosecco and considering the canapés. 

While he’s pondering the procurement of a maize based snack Malcolm hoves into view looking like a threat, both for his impeccable black tie and the terrifying look on his face. Julius rather likes it. 

‘Not now, Malcolm,’ he says firmly, ‘it’s a party.’ 

‘Not now what? I’m not saying anything,' Malcolm puts on a hangdog expression and Julius brightens up even further. 

They stand side by side in silence for a beat before Julius can’t resist the chance to gossip; information is Malcolm's life blood, he’s bound to have an opinion at the very least.

‘What do you suppose that is? Arrangement or relationship?’ Julius tilts his head and Malcolm follows his gaze across the room to where Adam and Fergus are still deep in conversation. 

‘Who? Pinky and Perky? I’d say they were a couple of blowjobs away from a civil partnership.’ 

‘Interesting…’ Julius taps his fingers jauntily against his glass and takes a single step forward.

‘Leave them the fuck alone, Julius. Not everyone wants to be in your poofs cabal,’ Malcolm doesn’t have to put his arm out to stop him, the tone of his voice is enough. 

Suitably chastened, Julius says, ‘well, quite. You didn’t.'

‘I didn’t like the sound of the initiation ceremony,’ Malcolm says darkly, raising an arch eyebrow, and it serves as Julius’s only giddy thrill of the evening.

‘More’s the pity,’ he says in an undertone and Malcolm glares at him again. 

‘Fuck off you baldy pervert,’ Malcolm smiles at him like a shark and hands Julius his empty glass, ‘I’m away to tear Geoff Holhurst a new orifice for that fucking Newsnight blunder yesterday. You think if I take him out at the knees I can get his head to look in proportion?’ 

‘Play nicely, Malcolm,’ says Julius reprovingly and watches him stalk off, looking like James Bond but deadlier.

From across the room Adam smirks and Fergus flushes a bright scarlet as Julius tips his glass in their direction. It certainly is interesting, that’s for sure. 

**Fergus & Adam **

‘Why is Julius Nicholson looking at us like that? Oh, fuck there’s Malcolm,’ Fergus does a strange little about turn just at the sight of Malcolm Tucker who’s reputation precedes him in every direction and is a significant figure in Fergus’s nightmares even if they’ve never actually had a conversation that amounted to more than a few words at shitty, politics-adjacent functions like this. 

‘Julius is probably still pissed off at me for flirting with his husband at that Home Office party just after the election,’ says Adam in a rather bored tone of voice and, at Fergus’s irritated glance, ‘in my defence, I didn’t know he was married and certainly not to Julius. Look, calm down, Malcolm isn’t interested in you - for any reason’ 

Fergus turns back slightly, his eyes still following Malcolm as he heads in the direction of poor Geoff Holhurst with a look of murderous intent. 

‘Do you think they’ve, y’know?’ Fergus wiggles his fingers suggestively and Adam rolls his eyes. 

‘Julius and Malcolm? Nah, not for want of trying on Julius’s part, though,’ says Adam before he downs his drink and sets the empty glass on a conveniently placed table. 

‘Do you think they know that we’ve...y’know.’

‘What are you eight years old? You can say it out loud: had sex, fucked, _made love.’_

Adam really is such a prick sometimes.

‘Fine do you think they know that we’ve fucked,’ he hisses the last word in a way that somehow manages to make it sound twice as loud as he intended and several people in the vicinity turn round. 

Adam is pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation, which is such a familiar sight that it sort of turns Fergus on at this point and when he looks back up, he says, ‘yes, Fergus, I can pretty categorically say that Julius Nicholson has worked out that we’ve fucked. Just like how everyone else we know has worked it out.’ 

Across the room Julius is alone now, raising his glass at the pair of them and it dawns on Fergus in that moment that he’s been really fucking stupid. 

‘Oh, Christ. They have, haven’t they..?’ 

‘Before we’d even done it, I reckon,’ Adam is smiling, looking at him like he thinks Fergus is a moron but in a way that also suggests a not insignificant amount of fondness. It makes Fergus brave. 

‘Do you want to get out of here?’ 

He steps a pace closer and Adam chokes into his newly acquired glass of prosecco before he recovers himself enough to say, ‘yeah?’ 

‘Yeah,’ Fergus says decisively and takes Adam’s hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr!](https://lacerta26.tumblr.com)


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